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Love always the moment!

Live Like someone left the door open! Credit, Martine Lemens via Freeimages.com

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Goo Goo and the Gremlin

I grew up in a small town...no let me rephrase that...I grew up in a town with eight streets. You could stand in the middle of it and see the surrounding cornfields. My dad liked to joke that the mayor called one time to say that we would have to move out of our house if we didn't get at least one dead car in our yard by the end of the month.

There were no stores in town. The church got closed down because the boiler blew. The post office burned down one fateful night and the building that WAS a dance hall in the 40's is now a car garage. My parents' house was across the street from a grain elevator -- one of the few working businesses in town.

Just to give you an idea of what the culture was like, I'll tell you a little story. My half-sister's husband and I were sitting in my parents' living room one afternoon watching TV when we noticed someone walking outside in the yard. I went out to see who it was and when I came back, Mike asked, "Who was that?"

"The Mayor," I replied.

"What was the Mayor doing in your yard?"

"Reading the meter on the house."

"Why was the Mayor reading the meter on your house?" He asked, wide-eyed.

"What else would he be doing?"

Photo Credit: Yamamoto Ortiz Via freeimages.com

Most of the people in our little city were really nice. Our neighbors (I'll call them the Douglas' for the sake of the story) have always been really good friends of ours. Laurel and Dave Douglas are like another aunt and uncle to me. They love to tease me about stuff I did when I was a kid...Sometimes I wish they'd forget certain things...

They have a lot of inside jokes with my parents too...one of our favorites has to do with the story of the neighbor on the other side of my parents' house: "Goo Goo" Summerset. Goo Goo (as he asked us to call him) and his wife used to stand out in their front yard and yell at each other...while standing two feet apart. He used to put locks on his refrigerator door so his kids couldn't eat between meals and (trust me) he had more than his share of dead cars in the front yard. He was a constant source of both annoyance and entertainment.

One day my parents and I were working in our back yard when Goo Goo hurried out of his front door and started jumping around in his yard, yelling incomprehensibly. Mom, Dad, and I stopped and stared at him for a few seconds. What in the world was this guy up to now?

Finally Goo Goo slowed down his speech enough so that we could understand him a little: "My Car! My Car!!! Somebody stole my car! Thief! Thief!"

We all looked at each other in disbelief. Who (in their right mind) would have stolen Goo Goo's car?

Dave and Laurel called to us from their yard. "What's got Goo Goo so upset?" Dave asked.

Five minutes later, the five of us were sitting in lawn chairs in my parents' back yard watching the "show" in Goo Goo's yard. By now, Goo Goo and Mrs. Summerset were in their front yard arguing about who had left the keys in the car's ignition. Goo Goo also mentioned that he had called the police.

"Oh good," Mom said taking a sip of her pop..."This is going to be a cop show."

Ten minutes later, the police had arrived...and they started questioning Mr. and Mrs. Summerset about the last time they had seen the car, etc.

What the five of us found amusing was that although we were sitting in lawn chairs watching the whole thing go on, the police didn't ask us any questions or even speak to us once. We didn't care though...we were too busy munching on our popcorn.

"YOU HAVE TO CATCH THESE CRIMINALS!" Goo Goo exclaimed. "We're in the middle of a crime wave! You can't trust anyone anymore!!! No one cares about each other like they used to!"

Wallaby in Deep Thought

Sunset over the Ohio River

Red Sky At Night...Sailor's Delight...

Beautiful Moment in Time...

You wouldn't believe how long I had to wait for that butterfly to land...

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Here's the thing...I am going to blog...I'm gonna blog a lot...sometimes I'll stay on one subject for DAYS ON END...but because of my talent for Mental Leapfrog...I'm committing to no basic subject for this blog...

Favorite Quotes:

"Everything before this moment is history" (Ken Burns)...

"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well..."

"Faith is the Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

"Blessed are they who laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused!" (Anonymous)

"If nothing changed, there'd be no butterflies" (anonymous).

"This is quite possibly the worst coffee I've ever tasted... It tastes like a monkey peed in battery acid." (Quote from ABC's "Castle")"Through sincere prayer we are brought into connection with the mind of the Infinite" (Ellen White: Steps to Christ, 97).

Humor is a gentle way to acknowledge human frailty..."Drama's Vitallest Expression is the Common Day"...Emily Dickinson"Stay Calm, Stay on Course, Stay Connected" -- Nancy I. "The Object of life is not following our dreams, its finding God's Destiny."... Dwight NelsonBe Yourself...No One Else is Qualified...

"No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Permission" -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Robin on the Rocks

Little known fact: Robins are DIVAS...They love having their pictures taken. I took pictures of this Robin for 5 minutes before I got board and walked away...

Graceful Swan

They look so graceful in water don't they... The thing is, swans are like people...sometimes they look perfect, like nothing in their lives are going wrong and everything they do is flawless...(see next photo)

Swan out of Water

This looks like a goose that got its neck stuck in a car door, doesn't it... Its the same bird from the picture above taken a few minutes later. On land, swans just don't look right somehow...People are like this too...it may look like people are perfect, but get them out of their element....the picture isn't always pretty...